Molecular sieves are a commercially important class of crystalline materials. They have distinct crystal structures with ordered pore structures which are demonstrated by distinct X-ray diffraction patterns. The crystal structure defines cavities and pores which are characteristic of the different species. Molecular sieves such as zeolites have been used extensively to catalyze a number of chemical reactions in refinery and petrochemical reactions, and catalysis, adsorption, separation, and chromatography.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,733,742 discloses molecular sieve SSZ-63 and its synthesis using N-cyclodecyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium cations as a structure directing agent. SSZ-63 is structurally related to zeolite beta. The structure of conventional zeolite beta may be described as a random intergrowth of two polytypes, polytype A and polytype B, in nearly equal proportions. A. W. Burton et al. (J. Phys. Chem. B 2005, 109, 20266-20275) report that SSZ-63 may be described as a random intergrowth of beta polytypes B and CH having about 60-70% polytype CH character. Polytype CH is the hypothetical polytype C proposed by J. B. Higgins et al. (Zeolites, 1988, 8, 446-452 and Zeolites, 1989, 9, 358) and is essentially an ordered intergrowth of polytypes A and B.
The commercial development of SSZ-63 has been hindered by the high cost of the N-cyclodecyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium cation structure directing agent required in U.S. Pat. No. 6,733,742 for its synthesis and, hence, there has been significant interest in finding alternative, less expensive structure directing agents for the synthesis of SSZ-63.
According to the present disclosure, molecular sieve SSZ-63 has now been synthesized using 1-(decahydronaphthalen-2-yl)-1-methylpyrrolidinium cations as a structure directing agent.